Ecommerce Paper, the Zimbabwean Context

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, or e-business consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. The use of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Commerce (Accessed - 16/09/2010: 10:00am)

A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium content on a website, but most electronic commerce involves the transportation of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail.

1.2 Brief history of ecommerce

The term e-commerce was originally conceived to describe the process of conducting business transactions electronically using technology from the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These technologies, which first appeared in the late 1970’s, allowed for the exchange of information and the execution of electronic transactions between businesses, typically in the form of electronic purchase orders and invoices. EDI and EFT were the enabling technologies that laid the groundwork for what we now know as e-commerce. Throughout the 1980’s, the proliferation of credit cards, ATM machines and telephone banking was the next step in the evolution of electronic commerce. Starting in the early 90’s, e-commerce would also include things such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), data warehousing and data mining.

It wasn’t until 1994 that e-commerce (as we know it today) really began to accelerate with the introduction of security protocols and high speed internet connections such as DSL, allowing for much faster connection speeds and faster online transaction capability. Industry “experts” predicted explosive growth in e-commerce related businesses. In response to these expert opinions, between 1998 and 2000, a substantial number of businesses built out their first rudimentary e-commerce websites. The definition of e-commerce began to change in 2000 though, the year of the dot-com collapse when thousands of internet businesses folded. Despite the epic collapse, many of the worlds’ most established traditional brick-and-mortar businesses were emboldened with the promise of e-commerce and the prospect of serving a global customer base electronically. The very next year, business to business transactions online became one of the largest forms of e-commerce with over $700 billion dollars in sales. Many of the dot-com collapses “first-mover” failures served their offline competitors very well, providing evidence of what not to do in building a viable online business.

1.3 E-Commerce Pioneers

The birth of companies such as eBay and Amazon (launched in 1994) really began to lead the way in e-commerce. Both eBay and Amazon were among the first to establish prominent e-commerce brands. The most prominent e-commerce categories today are computers, books, office supplies, music, and a variety of electronics. Amazon.com, Inc., founded by Jeff Bezos, was the original e-commerce pioneer and certainly the most recognizable. In the beginning, Amazon’s business model required massive investment in warehousing, delivery and fulfillment capability and took years for Amazon to gain profitability. But finally in 2003, almost 10 years after launching the...

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References
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Gibbs,J.,Kraemer,K.,Dedrick,J., 2006. Environment and Policy Factors Shaping Global E-Commerce Diffusion: A Cross-Country Comparison. The Information Society [online],19(1). Available at:&lt;URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/utis20#.U-P-XVZzxAY&gt; [Accessed 02 August 2014]
Hackstetter,T.,2013. China-The Rising Dragon in E-commerce [online]. Available at:&lt;URL:http://theseus17-kk.lib.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/71187/Hackstetter_Tatjana_2014_02_10.pdf?sequence=1&gt;[Accessed 01 August 2014]...

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B2C, B2B, C2C, P2P & M-Commerce
Michael Singletary
BUSI 424
Professor Pamela Wiewel
August, 2013
Abstract
Ecommerce or E-business has become a remarkable tool for marketing and selling goods and services over the World Wide Web and Internet. Merchants use the technology of ecommerce to perform business-to-business (B2B), business-to-customer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), peer-to-peer (P2P) and m-commerce transactions, which digitally exchanges information between two parties. The Internet has become the most used electronic interface application in the World Wide Web. E-commerce technology permits commercial transaction to cross-cultural, regional, and national boundaries far more conveniently and cost-effectively… (Laudon & Tarver, 2013, p.16), this presents a huge advantage for companies who aspire to do business on a global platform. The World Wide Web allows a company to reach out to over 3 billion possible customers worldwide. However, there are some companies out there that may be able to increase their market share by implementing some or all of the business strategies we will discuss in this paper. I will attempt to provide examples of how, Mr. Friendly’s a mobile catering and food truck enterprise can implement the use of the Internet and World Wide Web to enhance and reinvent their business operations while establishing the company’s...

...its different issues in the actuality.
Introduction
Day by day, new technologies come up bringing new ways of communication and interconnection, using the great network: Internet. This network, in addition, opens a wide door of electronic business opportunities known as E-Commerce (Roehl-Anderson, 2010).
In the actuality, and with the development of new technologies in mobile devices area, make electronic commerce is more accessible, fast and mobile (Antovski &amp; Gusev, 2009). This new E-business model is known as Mobile E-commerce or M-Ecommerce.
According with Antovski &amp; Gusev (2009), M-Commerce is defined as any transaction with monetary value that is conducted via a mobile telecommunications network. M-Commerce like Ecommerce can be B2B (business to business), P2P (person to person) or B2C (business to customer) oriented. The framework divides into couple sub areas based on user’s distribution criterion. Mobile Ecommerce addresses electronic commerce via mobile devices, where the consumer is not in physical or eye contact with the goods that are being purchased.
Definitions
Mobile Devices: Also referred to as handheld devices, are generally poket-sized devices with computing capabilities (including smartphones, PDAs, etc.). These devices generally offer robust functionality without the restriction associated with heavier, tethered equipped (Harris, 2010).
E-commerce: E-commerce (electronic commerce or EC) is the...

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Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of business transactions. This is an effective and efficient way of communicating within an organization and one of the most effective and useful ways of conducting business.
SEVEN FEATURES OF E-COMMERCE .
Ubiquity
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to achieve the mission, objectives or goals for your business or project." The critical success factors for e-commerce entrepreneurs are those e-commerce or customer service activities they must perform to be successful in the e-commerce arena.  Functions

Sixteen critical success factors for e-commerce entrepreneurs exist, and all 16 fall into one of the following categories: provide special incentives, beat the competition in pricing and provide good customer service. Low prices and special incentives will drive customers to ecommerce sites, and unique customer service
1. What Is Ecommerce? Transacting or facilitating business on the Internet is called ecommerce. Ecommerce is short for "electronic commerce." 2. What are the 4 main perspectives for ecommerce? a. b. c. d. Financial perspective Customer perspective Internal perspective Innovation and learning perspective
will keep customers coming back.  Considerations

Prior to launching a venture, every entrepreneur should develop a business plan. In developing the plan, entrepreneurs should mention the critical...